The Missouri Supreme Court has ruled against a St. Louis school bus driver injured in a collision with a Metro commuter bus.
A jury awarded the driver, Mary Moore, $1.87 million for her injuries, but a circuit judge reduced it because of a state law that caps damages against public agencies at $300,000 per accident.
Moore claimed the law imposing the $300,000 cap conflicts with another, earlier provision of state law.
The Supreme Court disagrees.
“There is no statutory conflict,” the court ruled. "The circuit court’s judgment, which reduced [Moore’s] damage award to statutory maximum amount allowed, plus interest, is affirmed."
Rich Aubuchon, executive director of the Missouri Civil Justice Reform Coalition, praised the ruling.
“I will continue to review the application of this holding beyond the specific facts before the Court,” he told the St. Louis Record. “However, upholding caps in this case is encouraging for many who rely upon the Court to uphold statutory caps in other area of the law.
The earlier state statute was enacted in 1949 when Missouri and Illinois created Metro Call-A-Ride bus system as an” interstate compact entity,” according to the Missouri Supreme Court ruling.
The statute creating the compact said, “All interstate and intrastate United States Department of Transportation safety rules and regulations shall apply to all operations of the bi-state development transit system.”
Federal safety rules requires buses seating 16 passengers or more to carry a minimum of $5 million in liability insurance, according to the recent Missouri court ruling.
Moore claimed the federal rules have precedence over the Missouri law later passed that sets caps on damages.
But that is not how the Missouri court interpreted the two statutes, ruling that the caps still apply even though although the Metro bus system may be required by another law to have liability insurance that exceeds those caps.